All Alone in the World
by CharlesTheBold
Summary: You learn a lot about somebody when you're cooped up in a tent together for months. Please review.
1. Day 65

**All alone in the World**

_Disclaimer: I have no business connection with HARRY POTTER. My only purpose in writing this story is to have fun and maybe share it)_

**Chapter 1 Day 65**

_(Author's Note: this story takes place late autumn during DEATHLY HALLOWS, after Ron's departure)_

Harry Potter looked out of the tent entrance into the woods. Tonight it was his turn to keep watch, to make sure that nothing sneaked up on Hermione or himself during the night. But nothing had happened, either tonight or the thirty-something previous nights where he had been look-out. He almost wished something WOULD happen, simply to give him the chance to do something.

Out there, he knew, thousands of people were suffering under the rule of Voldamort, pinning their hopes on the prophecy that Harry Potter would appear and liberate them. And here Harry was, accomplishing nothing. Even the subsidiary mission of tracking down Horcruxes and destroying them had stalled.

Nearly everything that they had accomplished so far had been Hermione's work. It was Hermione who had planned out what they would need in hiding and stashed them all in her Bottomless Handbag. The Bottomless Handbag itself had been her inspiration. It was Hermione who had had the foresight to withdraw all of her Muggle and witch-world money from their banks, so that the refugees had untraceable cash to purchase food. If Bill and Fleur hadn't followed suit and gotten Harry's own funds withdrawn and exchanged at Gringotts, they'd be living off Hermione's savings now. It was Hermione who had realized that the Black mansion in London was compromised and that they would have to give it up for months of tent-dwelling. And yet she never complained about bearing too much of the burden. It was her share of defeating Voldamort.

It was time for Harry to do something, but Harry had no idea what.

Light in the east. Harry had been lookout frequently enough to guess the time, even without looking at his watch. Another half-hour and, by their agreement, his time as lookout would be done. It was arbitrary. Who knew when Death Eaters might find and attack them?

When the half-hour was up, he went in the tent, and looked at the sleeping Hermione. For the first six years years of their friendship he had been barred from her room in Gryffindor tower, yet ever since Apparating to the Black mansion they had been forced to share sleeping quarters. Harry was careful to keep some distance. "Hermione, it's morning."

She got up and stretched. "G'd morning. 'Scuse me. Gotta freshen up," she muttered. She walked to the washroom, still half asleep.

Harry turned his attention to breakfast. Scrambling eggs was beyond him – they always burned – but at least he could use a mild heating spell to toast muffina, and spreading butter and jam was simple. Hermione shouldn't be saddled with cooking along with everything else.

Hermione came back out. "Freshen" was relative. Her hair had always been bushy and difficult to manage, and it had grown in recent months. Her jeans, tough as impeccably clean as a spell could make them, looked worn. Harry knew that he looked no better. Visiting a clothing shop or a hair stylist wasn't worth the risk, and who was around to judge their appearance? The whole point was not to be seen at all.

Harry put that thought out of his head, and pondered something else that had been bothering him. Maybe it was time to bring it into the open.

"Hermione?"

"Mmm-hmmm?"

"Have you ever regretted deciding to be a witch?"

She frowned. "I was born with the power whether I wanted it or now."

"But you could have chosen a Muggle school instead of Hogwarts. With your brains, you may have won a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge by now. Me, I didn't have much choice. As a Muggle I'd just be the Dursley's poor relation. Basically a nobody."

"Hogwarts seemed so much more fascinating than a Muggle day school. Besides, well, I think the Wizard World needs Muggle-borns like me. TO keep them in touch with the rest of humanity. The pure-blooders never understand that."

"What do you mean?"

"Not everything bad in the Wizard World is You-know-who's fault. Look at Elves. During the 1700's Muggles had extensive debates about slavery, and finally decided that it should be suppressed, wherever it was found. I was shocked to learn that my best friends owned Elves as slaves, and thought nothing of it. They were too isolated from progress."

"I see," said Harry guiltily, thinking about Kreacher.

"When – if – we ever get rid of You-know-who, I'm going to campaign against slavery again. This time throughout the Wizard World, not just at Hogwarts. Wizards can adapt. More spells, or maybe grit their teeth and actually learn some Muggle technology. The Weasleys have never needed Elves."

Three years ago Hermione's political agenda had seemed funny, particularly since the Elves themselves never complained. But Harry had been at the receiving end of brute force for months, as well as seeing the effects of slavery close-up in Kreacher. Hermione was right, about elves in particular and learning from Muggles.

"Then there are the dementors. With the Muggles, there are rules for how you treat prisoners. No reason to terrorize somebody when you've got them firmly in custody. But the prisoners have to contend with creatures that the Ministry can't even control properly. The wizard world ought to fight dementors, not use them."

"Right. If we ever get rid of You-know-who--"

Ever since Ron's departure, Harry and Hermione had worked out their schedule. Whoever had been lookout the previous night would take a nap after breakfast, while the other would set out to the nearest town, looking for Horcruxes and gathering supplies. The traveller would return by sundwn, share supper or tea, and take his or her own nap until it was necessary to stand watch.

Thus, Hermione set out from the tent, and got in his bunk and snoozed for a few hours, getting the fatigue out of his system. After a small lunch, he picked up one of Hermione's textbooks from under her bunk and studied it. Normally that would be Hermione's responsibility, but they were no longer at a point where they could divide responsibility like that. If he was wandering around a town alone, he had to be able to recognize a Horcrux, or clues leading to one, without being able to consult Hermione.

Around two-thirty there came a sudden flash of light, followed by a loud bang. Harry pulled his wand out and stood at alert, fearing an attack by Death-Eaters. Then he realized that a thunderstorm had come up, and that phenomena were ordinary thunder and lightning.

The magic tent ought to hold up against heavy rain or even falling branches. There was nothing much one could do to avoid the damage of a lightning strike, but there was low probability if it hitting their tent directly. The main problem was rainwater flowing in through the tent flap, and Harry set up a shield charm against that.

Should he seek out Hermione? There were dangers in that. Travel more than a few feet from the tent, and their own spells would work against them, making the tent invisible even to its owners. Lose track of the tent, and living off the country might be impossible. It was crucial for somebody to stay with the tent at all times.

Hermione might have an umbrella in her Handbag; failing that, she could use a charm to repel the raindrops. Trust her to handle the situation.

But as teatime came and went, and it started to become dark, it was time to start worrying. They had only arrived in this section of England yesterday, and had little familiarity with these woods. They had learned to set up subtle landmarks near that tent to avoid getting lost, but once the sun set those marks would be hard to spot. They were ALWAYS careful to come back before nightfall.

The rain itself had subsided. Harry stood at the opening of the tent, peering through the woods for Hermione. With luck she might be wandering nearby. But there was no sight of her. She might have gotten lost further away. She might still be in town. She may have suffered some Muggle-world accident like being hit by a car, or the Death Eaters might have gotten her.

Harry took a deep breath, but stopped himself from calling out. If there WERE Death Eaters or their allies around, calling out the name of a fugitive Muggleborn, known to be close friends with Enemy #1, would be a giveaway. He and Hermione hadn't really planned to deal with this situation.

Was it possible that Hermione was gone, and that Harry would have to fulfill his quest alone?

TBC


	2. No Wand, No Way

**All alone in the World**

**Chapter 2 No Wand, No Way**

After a few minutes, inspiration came to Harry. Uttering Hermione's name might be dangerous, but there was another name which Hermione would know, and the Death Eaters might not. "Luna! Luna! Are you there?"

A few seconds later, the voice came "Neville! I hear you! Keep calling!" So Hermione had heard him and caught on to the ruse. Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom were brave and loyal friends, but outside their little circle, nobody took them seriously, and the Death Eaters may not know the names.

"I'm right here Luna. In the clearing. Can you hear me, Luna?"

Finally Hermione staggered into the clearing. She was an utter mess: clothes soaked with rain, her normally bushy hair plastered to her head, spattered in a number of places with mud.

"What happened to you?" Harry asked in wonder.

"Lost my wand." She pointed back in the woods. "A little waterlogged rise gave way under my weight. I was so startled that I dropped the wand, then I slid a few feet on my bum, and I couldn't find the wand afterward. And without the wand, I couldn't see our marks--"

"It's OK. Go inside and get cleaned up, and I'll look for the wand."

She nodded and trudged into the tent. Relieved at having something useful to do, even a minor problem, Harry pointed his wand where Hermione had indicated, and chanted: "_Accio_, Wand!"

Nothing came out. But Harry felt a tug on his wand, as if it detected its target but was too distant to move it. Treating the effect like a compass, Harry walked in that direction and repeated the Accio spell every minute. Eventually Hermione's wand sprang out from a fresh clump of mud and poked Harry in the stomach. Not a pleasant sensation, but the mission was accomplished.

Harry carefully retraced his steps to find the clearing and its tent again. Fortunately he had left footprints in the moist ground, and the twilight was still bright enough to illuminate them. Eventually he reached the clearing and the tent became visible. He went in with great relief. It was an outpost in the wilderness, but at the moment it was the only place that he could call home.

Hermione was sitting in front of the stove, wrapped in covers from her bed. Her jeans, blouse, and some items Harry didn't know the names of were piled in a wet stack a few feet away.

"What are you doing?" asked Harry.

"I never realized just how dependent I was on a wand," Hermione said ruefully. "Couldn't dry my clothes, couldn't get new clothes out of my Handbag without a spell. Fortunately you left the stove on so I could get a little warm." She looked up and noticed her wand in Harry's hand. "You found it! Wonderful."

She got up. But in her anxiety to change clothes she tried to deal simultaneously with the wet clothes, her Handbag, and her wand, and it was too much. After a few paces part of the bedcover got loose and dropped down, and she stepped on it. Suddenly she fell down in a heap, and the bedcovers fell off altogether.

"Harry, DON'T LOOK!"

Harry's first impulse was to see if she was all right, but he obeyed the command and turned his back. "I won't. Are you OK?"

"I think so – maybe it would be better if I just walked to the loo and you handed me things."

"If you like."

He heard some footsteps and imagined Hermione dashing to the water closet. Then he tried NOT imagining it, because she was still naked as he pictured her.

She pulled the door ajar and stuck out an arm imperiously. Harry gave her the wand and the Handbag, amazed at how light the latter was. He didn't bother with the wet clothes. She locked the door afterward, and Harry wandered to the chair.

He tried to put the recent sight in perspective. After all, everybody had rear ends: it was a biological necessity. She had even joked about her "bum" a few minutes earlier. You just didn't expect to SEE it.

As minutes passed, and Hermione failed to emerge from the loo, Harry started to get worried. Walking to the door, he asked, "Are you all right, Hermione?"

"I feel so humiliated! I'm afraid to show my face," came her voice.

"Hermione, listen to me. I've known you for six years, and you're one of the bravest, cleverest, most loyal friends I know. I know you too much to let one little incident ruin my respect for you. Cooped up as we are, some accident was bound to happen sooner or later. If you like, I'll do something embarrassing so we feel even."

Hermione opened the door, stepped out, and kissed Harry on the cheek in gratitude.

A few minutes later, as they were sitting in the tent's central area, Harry urged Hermione to report what she had seen during the day.

"Nothing much. No clues to Horcruxes," she said wearily. "But I'll tell you one thing that struck me. There was a big group of Muggle teenagers, all queued up at a cinema. Something called THE TITANIC."

"Based on the old shipwreck, I presume."

"I guess. I didn't care about the picture. What struck me was how happy they were, as if they hadn't a care in the world."

"They don't know that You-Know-Who is targeting them for slavery."

"Right. But I thought: will I ever feel that way again? Able to think of love, fun, amusements? Or if we manage to kill You-Know-Who, will I feel too scarred by battle? And if we don't kill him--"

Harry found it hard to empathize. He didn't have a happy childhood to hark back to; he had lived his first ten years with the Dursleys and they weren't exactly pleasant memories.

"Sometimes I feel like our entire universe had shrunk to the size of this tent," Hermione complained. "Life is passing us by while we're wasting months in here."

"**In **a good cause," Harry added hastily.

"Of course it's in a good cause! That's what keeps me here. If only I could foresee it ENDING--"

The conversation languished after that. "Bedtime" – according to the rigid schedule they applied to themselves – arrived. It was Hermione's turn to stand watch, so Harry got in bed while Hermione stationed herself at the tent flap. But she was close enough to be heard, and in fact she spoke up unexpectedly.

"Harry? Have you ever seen a girl naked before me?"

So she was still dwelling on that, though at least she sounded calm about it. On any other occasion Harry might have lied, but he and Hermione knew each other too well for him to get away with it.

"No. Not counting pictures, of course."

"Not even Ginny**? **You have known her for years."

Harry had never been able to discuss his feelings for Ginny with anybody. Ron was the logical confidante, but he was also protective of his younger sister. It hadn't occurred to him to talk to another girl about it.

"I think I tuned Ginny out for years, because of the incest angle. The Weasleys are practically my family, and that made Ginny my sister, and off-limits."

"She certainly didn't consider YOU off-limits. Raved about you for years in the girl's dorm."

"I didn't know that." And he wasn't sure he liked his female friends discussing him in detail behind his back. "If you've heard everything from her, why ask me?"

"Because she clammed up last year. I didn't know how far you two had gone – maybe into bed somewhere. Students at Hogwarts have managed."

"Well, we didn't. The business with You-Know-Who and the Horcruxes came up, and I didn't want Ginny involved."

"Sounds like she's involved anyway. She knew that Dumbledore had willed you the sword, so she tried to steal it."

"I didn't anticipate that. I thought that I was keeping her safe."

"Nobody's safe."

And with that, the conversation ended.

The next morning, it was time to travel again. They stood outside, and Hermione uttered the spell to collapse the tent. Harry wondered what might happen if he was in the loo when somebody outside cast that spell. Would he shrink with the tent, or be crushed to death? Or did the spell have a failsafe that would stop it if a human was in danger?

Afterward Harry joined Hermione in eliminating clues that they had camped there. After a few minutes he stepped back to examine his handiwork. "There! You wouldn't know that we were ever here."

"No," said Hermione in a wistful tone that gave the phrase a different meaning. "Never here."

TBC


	3. Another World

**All alone in the World**

**Chapter 3 Another World**

It was getting time to Apparate, and that was a complicated process in itself. Their Apparation teachers at Hogwarts warned them never to jump to a destination that they were unfamiliar with, but of course they had never anticipated the current situation. The best that Harry and Hermione could do was to check an excellent map of the British Isles -- which they had acquired weeks ago – and hope for the best. On one occasion they had Apparated above an undocumented pond, and fallen in once they were material enough to respond to gravity. The big nightmare was that they might materialize in the middle of a road and get run over by Muggle cars. With the Invisibility Cloak, the drivers would not be aware they were even there. But that was one reason why they preferred the country.

When they were ready, the pair got under the Cloak, and Harry clasped Hermione's body tightly to be sure they stayed together. They did this every time they changed camp, yet this time Harry felt self-conscious. He had seen this body uncovered.

Then the dizzying feelings of Apparation drove his misgivings out of his head. When they materialized, the trees were gone, though he sensed something large nearby. When he could breathe, there was a definite scent of manure. He looked around.

They had materialized in a horse pasture. Most of the animals were grazing, one horse was trotting in their direction.

"Harry, take off the cloak," said Hermione sharply.

"Okay," he said, removing the cloak and folding it to make it easy to carry. He trusted Hermione's judgement. Only after the action was done did he ask: "Why?"

"Horses are usually gentle animals if left alone. But if a horse smelled two humans nearby but couldn't see them, it might get spooked."

"Good thinking." Harry looked around again. "There's a hill over there; I don't think the horses will bother us on top. We can set up the tent there."

"Yes, let's go. But be careful not to step in any—"

"Yeah, I was already thinking that." As they walked Harry asked, "How did you know so much about horse behaviour, Hermione? You'd scarcely find it in a Magical Creatures textbook."

"I took riding lessons, summer before last."

"I didn't know that."

"I figured: I rode an invisible thestral to London, I ought to be able to stay on a horse. Besides, during the summer I have to act like a Muggle girl. Many Muggle girls like horse riding."

"Yes," said Harry absently, his thoughts going in another direction. HIS summers were mainly dominated by attempts to avoid the Dursleys, and they were so devoid of pleasant memories that he usually forgot about the holidays once he was back at Hogwarts. And he could imagine life in the crowded Weasley household. But it had never occurred to him to ask what Hermione did. He thought that he knew her well, but, that was a portion of her life that he knew nothing about.

They reached the ridge and climbed it. Harry was grateful for whatever made Hermione's handbag weightless; if they had to travel dragging a collapsed tent and provisions, they never would get up this hill.

They arrived, and Harry acted as lookout while Hermione set up the tent and the spells. Until they got the invisibility spells going, he felt vulnerable, being visible on the height. And then he felt angry with himself for feeling that way. Two years ago he had been the local Quidditch star, enjoying being the center of attention. Did Voldemort have him so cowed that he was afraid even to be seen? He tried to transfer that anger onto Voldemort, who deserved it. But that was a bad idea too: feeling futile anger against an enemy who could not be reached, could wear him down.

Hermione finished with the tent, and Harry helped with putting the interior in order, after which he explored the surrounding area. That was their usual protocol: a brief search on the day of arrival, and a long trip into town the next day.

If there was evidence of Voldemort's Dark Magic here it was certainly well hidden, because this corner of England was beautiful: the rolling hills, the grazing horses, the multi-coloured fall leaves. If only he could visualize the place as it was, without the shadow of Voldemort in his mind.

Tea-time arrived and it was time to settle down. Re-entering the tent, Harry stopped in surprise. Hermione was walking around in her underclothes, doing chores.

"Er—"

"Hi, Harry."

"Hi. Um, your clothes--" Harry shifted on his feet, trying to look the other way.

"I had a new idea. You were such a gentleman yesterday during my little mishap that I decided it was silly to keep wearing the jeans and blouses 24/7, wearing them out, just for the sake of modesty. I can trust you not to get beastly. Does it bother you?"

"No." But he was lying. The skimpy clothes made Hermione look sexy, and he hated that idea. For years she had been his mate – no, wrong word. She had been one of the boys. But still less was he going to let on that the sight made him feel 'beastly'. There was a world of contempt in that word. "But, um, I think I'll keep my jeans on, if you don't mind."

"As long as you take them off when you go to bed."

"Yeah."

Hermione had fixed a combined tea/supper. After a few bites, Harry asked "Hermione—"

"Yes?"

"What other things did you do during the summer hols?"

"Oh, different things. A trip to the Continent with my parents. I had a job as a shop-girl one summer. And there were a couple of boys."

"Boys? You never mentioned having boyfriends."

"They weren't worth mentioning. One bloke, I kept at arm's length because I was afraid he'd find out I was a witch. Eventually he decided that I was too stand-offish and went away. Another bloke got so beastly that I had to curse his – um, a certain portion of his anatomy."

"Didn't that violate the 'Underage Magic' rules?"

"Technically, yes. But the curse was so untraceable, and so well-deserved, that the Ministry let it slide. That was before they started harassing us, of course. But, no, my true love has always been at Ho--, I mean Hogwarts."

"At Hogwarts?"

Hermione turned red. "I mean, I love the school."

"I'm sure you said 'at'. And we were talking about boys." Harry felt a surge of excitement. Was it possible that she was in love with--? That her skimpy dress was a deliberate trick to get his attention, and he wouldn't have to restrain his desires because they were shared? "You're in love with some bloke at Hogwarts."

She turned even redder. "All right, Harry. You win. For years, I've been in love with Ron!"

TBC


	4. Explorations

**All alone in the World**

**Chapter 4 Explorations**

Harry carefully kept his expression under control. Fortunately Hermione at that moment was preoccupied in cutting off a piece of meat. Trying to sound as bland as possible, Harry asked, "Have you and Ron ever --?"

There were cultures in which raising doubts of a girl's virginity was a deadly question. Hermione was 1990s enough to catch the innuendo and be just mildly annoyed. "Of course not! Ron doesn't even know."

"Oh. When did this happen?"

"I'm not sure. It definitely wasn't love at first sight. I remember Ron trying to put silly spells on his pet rat."

Harry remembered. They had all been on the Hogwarts Express for the first time. Harry had met Ron on the Platform, and Hermione had later joined them in their compartment. All three were looking forward to the school; none were quite aware that a life-changing friendship had begun.

"The second year, I had that silly crush on Professor Lockhart, who so didn't deserve it. I suppose it wasn't until Fourth Year, when we were asked to pair up for the Yule Ball, and I had to focus on which boy I preferred, and I realized it was Ron."

"But you took Krum."

"There was that silly custom that the boy had to ask the girl – and Ron didn't! So when Krum asked, I accepted. I didn't love him, but he did seem to be attracted to me, and I could count on him not to get beastly. Besides, I thought I could make Ron jealous."

"You succeeded in that, but it didn't seem to lead to anything."

"The next year everything was in crisis. I knew, the instant Umbridge imposed on Dumbledore's opening speech, that there was going to be trouble – and the actual trouble was far worse than I anticipated. And I had to protect your reputation against all the slanders from You-Know-Who and the Ministry. And there was Dumbledore's Army to set up."

"Yeah." Although Harry was the one who actually trained the Army, it was Hermione who had done a lot of the behind-the-scenes work: talking to students behind Umbridge's back, seeking a hideout, trying to spot spies, and even punishing one of the latter by cursing her with a bad case of the zits. Just as she had done the crucial planning for the quest they were on now. It wasn't her fault that things weren't working. "But sixth year?"

"Um, yes," Hermione hesitated. "You got me, Harry. At root, I'm just not the lovey-dovey type. I want people to respect me for my brains, not how girly I look. It makes it hard to come forward when Ron's not budging an inch – and in the long run, that was good. Ron doesn't love me. If he did, why did he desert us?"

Harry knew that he should be defending Ron, but for the moment, he could not think of the words. He, too, resented Ron's desertion. And deep down, he didn't want Hermione to be longing for Ron.

They agreed on the division of labour for the next day: Hermione would stand watch overnight, and Harry would do the searching on the morrow. Hermione got in her bed to get a few hours nap, so as to be alert at watch time. it was an odd action to watch. For six years the boys of Gryffindor had been forbidden to enter the girl's dorms at Hogwarts, much less Hermione's own room. Mrs Weasley had been equally vigilant at the Barrow. But now they had shared sleeping quarters for weeks.

Harry got out a Dark Arts book (fighting to keep it from biting him in the process) and tried to focus on it, but he could not keep girls out of his mind.

A few hours later Hermione got out of bed, pulled on her jeans and a coat, and went outside to begin the watch for the night. It was time for Harry to go to sleep, so he put the book and his glasses aside and tried to lie still.

With Hermione out of sight, he could sort out his feelings better. His true love, he felt, was Ginny Weasley. Toward Hermione he felt loyalty, trust, and respect, but it was combined with disturbing sexual temptation. Harry had heard of "hormones", though it was not a subject taught at Hogwarts. It was his hormones that were tempting him. They were acting like an Imperius Spell, but one he could resist.

What could he do? Separating from Hermione was out of the question. He needed her, not for any selfish reason but to keep their campaign against Voldemort going.

Different accommodations? But this tent had been a lifesend: a magic artefact that could provide a kitchen, loo, washroom, and spacious central room, yet collapse into a lump small enough to fit in Hermione's Bottomless Handbag when they travelled. And it did so without being ordered at every minute, thanks to built-in charms. They were unlikely to get a second dwelling that was this useful.

Talk to Hermione about it directly? But he had already heard her opinion of boys with sex on their brains: they were "beastly" and she despised them. Worse, it might frighten the girl. If she didn't understand Harry's self-control, his ability to see the hormones for what they were, she might even fear that Harry would cross the small distance between their beds some night. Rape! The notion horrified Harry. And even if she rejected the idea outright, the feat might keep her from sleeping at night, rendering her too tired to concentrate the rest of the time. They needed her brains.

Of course if they found the Horcruxes and rendered Voldemort mortal, it would all be over. Somebody in the Order could kill Voldemort, Harry and Hermione could come out of hiding, and Harry could go back to Ginny. Focus on that, he told himself, although at the moment it seemed hard to.

The next morning he and Hermione shared a simple breakfast: toast and orange juice. As he went out the tent flap, Hermione went with him, and looked over the neighbouring pasture.

"It's so boring, the same thing day in and day out. Do you know what I'm tempted to do?"

Harry held back on the first response he thought of, and uttered the second. "Find a new book to study?"

Hermione laughed. "No, something more active. I'm tempted to find the farmer who owns that land, and offer him a few pounds if he'll lend me a horse to ride around the field for a couple of hours."

It was certainly a new side of Hermione. He had often thought she disliked sports, but maybe it was Quidditch in particular she disliked; she tended to be afraid of heights. Which made her willingness to make two emergency journeys by flying thestral all the more impressive.

"Well, why don't you? It's your money. And Death Eaters aren't likely to recognize a teenaged rider as Hermione Granger, wanted witch."

"We may need those few pounds some day, for provisions."

"We may find the Horcruxes before we get that low. Have faith."

She kissed him on the cheek. "Good luck. That's about the only faith I've got right now."

Harry set out on the road to town. After a few dozen meters he turned and made sure that the tent, and Hermione with it, were invisible. He still had enough landmarks to find it again.

Voldemort had always created a mystery about his whereabouts, and during his reign before Harry's birth the old Order of the Phoenix had collected lists of "sightings" of the wizard. Hermione had found the list at Grimmauld Place and stashed it in her Bottomless Handbag, on the assumption that Voldemort could have been hiding a Horcrux while being sighted. So far most of the sightings had proved bogus and none had led to a Horcrux, but it was the best lead they had at the moment. Today's village, Collinsby, was on the list.

Harry wandered the streets of Collinsby for several hours. In the progress he, like Hermione, was struck by the everyday lives of Muggles: shopping, driving about, relaxing in the small village square. What Hermione and he had, Harry realized, was an unnatural hothouse environment. People were not evolved to live day in and day out with one other person for company, hiding from the rest of the world. Even an ideal couple -- Mr. and Mrs Weasley, say – might find their nerves fraying. It shouldn't be surprising if Harry got obsessed with Hermione. If they could get a healthy separation for a while—

Harry was about to give up on his search when he went by an old, decaying shack. It would not have gotten his attention, except that it seemed to change shape as he passed. He walked back and forth, testing to see if the change was only an illusion created by his glasses. But no, it was definitely wider at some angles than at others.

Harry knew of no Muggle technology that would have this effect. But a clumsy Invisibility Charm might do it. And a charm implied a wizard to cast it.

Harry Disapparated from in front of the shack and materialized on the ridge above the horse pasture. He scanned the field to see if he could spot Hermione on one of the horses, but they were all grazing peacefully. He got close enough to the tent to see it, and entered.

The girl was reading another book, not surprisingly.

"Hermione!"

"Yes?"

"Come with me! I've found a magical hiding place. It may hold a Horcrux!"

TBC


	5. Where There's Smoke

**All alone in the World**

**Chapter 5 Where There's Smoke---**

Hermione pulled on her jeans and coat and reached for her wand. "Where is it?"

"An old shack in town. I can Apparate you there."

"Wonderful!"

The pair went out the tent flap. Like most dwellings, and with more reason, the tent had a spell to prevent anybody from Apparating in. It had the corresponding defect that you could not teleport out; you had to step a few steps away.

"We haven't left the tent alone in a long time," Hermione observed cautiously.

"I'm sure it'll be all right. Ready for the cloak?"

"Yeah."

She squeezed against Harry so that the Cloak could cover both, and to make sure she was covered by Side-Apparation. Harry was so excited about the Horcrux that the contact with the girl's body didn't disturb him for once. They materialized in town in front of the shack, and once they were sure that they could not be seen, they pulled off the Cloak to get a better view.

"Well?" asked Harry.

Hermione walked up and down, staring at the shack. "There's something odd here."

"That was the idea."

"Something odd on top of the oddness, I mean. Harry, You-Know-Who is a rotter as a human being, but he is an excellent wizard. Would he have been so clumsy as to make a concealment charm that doesn't work the same in all directions?"

Harry stared at the building in a new light. Hermione was right. "So you want to pass on this?"

"NO! It's magic in Muggle territory, and that makes it worth looking into. Maybe You-Know-Who had a clumsy subordinate do the concealment spell."

They walked up to the shack. It was locked, but the _Alohamora_ spell took care of that. Harry and Hermione went inside and found themselves in a corridor than ran to the right and left. The right and left ends of the building were precisely the parts that flickered in and out.

"I'll go this way, you go that way," Hermione muttered.

"Okay."

Harry went in the right-hand door and found a large store-room filled with boxes. He was about to peer in the boxes when he had shouting from the other side of the building.

"_Expelliarmus!"_ cried a coarse male voice, and Hermione shrieked.

Harry dashed back along to the corridor and through the left-door. Hermione was grappling with a man, her expelled wand lying useless a few feet away on the ground. On Harry's entrance, the man seized the girl and held her in front of himself as a human shield, with his wand jabbing at her neck.

It was Mundungus Fletcher.

Fletcher was a wizard-thief who had been recruited by the Order of the Phoenix, because some of the heads thought his devious skills might be useful. Harry disagreed, particularly at the present moment. At least Mundungus' name lent itself to an obvious insult.

"Drop the wand, Potter," ordered Dung.

Harry hastily searched his memory for some means of defence. The obvious one was _Expelliarmus,_ but he was worried by the way Dung was poking his wand into Hermione's neck. If the wand sailed off in a random direction, it could tear across her throat and kill her. _Expelliarmus_ was out of the question. Finally a clue came in Hermione's own voice, from a year ago. _The advantage of a silent spell is the element of surprise over your opponent_.

Harry held his wand loosely, as if about to drop it, yet carefully aimed at the wall behind Dung. He thought fiercely: _Confrego!_

The wall cracked audibly. Dung, startled by a sound from behind, lost his hold on Hermione. The girl dashed forward, scooped up her wand, and pointed it at her abductor. Then she did something that Harry had not expected.

"_Crucio!"_

Dung screamed in agony, then collapsed on the floor. Hermione stared at him with an odd expression.

"Hermione!" shouted Harry.

She turned to him blankly.

"Hermione, we've got to get out of here! A scream like that will bring the Muggles in here, and what can we tell them?"

He hugged her and Disapparated. They materialized above the field where the horses were calmly grazing. This foray had been sheer disaster. They had not found a Horcrux, at all, merely Mundungus' hideaway. No wonder the concealment spell had been clumsy.

"Let's dismantle the tent, Hermione. We have to leave this area."

She looked at him blankly. "But it's mid-afternoon! We never move this late."

"You put the torture curse on Dung, Hermione. Suppose he gets mad enough to tell You-Know-Who where we are?" Harry started moving non-compressible objects outside so that they could collapse the tent. Hermione, in a docile way, followed suit.

"You think he would betray the order?"

Something was very wrong with Hermione. Usually she was the first to size up a crisis and act, as when news arrived at the Weasley's of the coup d'état, or when she realized that the Death Eaters had demolished the defences at Grimmauld Place. Now she seemed very slow. Had Dung put some sort of confusion curse on her wonderful mind? If so, Harry was half-tempted to go back and kill him.

But perhaps she would still respond to the right argument. "Every time I think I've sized him up, Dung does something worse. Do you remember how he treated Kreacher? Kreacher adored the magic locket, not because of greed or power-lust, but because it was a memento of somebody he loved. And Dung stole it. What could be more despicable than robbing a helpless elf?"

Hermione's empathy with the elves seemed to do the trick. "You're right, Harry. We have to get out before that scumbag can trace us." She got out her Bottomless Handbag. "_Accio_ Map!"

The parchment sprang up into her hands.

"You look for a good refuge, Harry. I'll pack away the tent."

She still wasn't completely herself, but she got the emergency. With some relief, he looked over the map. He could evaluate her condition when they were out of immediate danger.

"We'll put aside our quest this time. Just concentrate on hiding," mused Harry. That way he could concentrate on Hermione and her odd behavior. He looked at the top of the British Isles. "Lots of tiny islands off the northern tip of Scotland. Nobody would look for us there without a prior clue. I'll pick one at random, and prepare to Apparate there."

"Cool."

That word was to prove very ironic later.

Hermione stashed all of their belongings in her Handbag, then spent a few minutes erasing all signs that they had ever been there. They didn't know whether Voldemort could track a body through a teleportation path, but if they made the source untraceable, they would be doubly safe.

When they were done, they spread the Cloak over themselves and vanished from the scene.

Downhill, the horses still grazed as if nothing remarkable had happened in their midst.

TBC


	6. Cold and Warmth

**All alone in the World**

**Chapter 6 COLD AND WARMTH**

The discomfort that Harry always felt while Apparating faded away and was replaced by something worse: icy cold, being blown at them by a high wind. There was frost on the ground, and since this was late afternoon, that meant that the frost had been here all day. There were on a desolate shore and he could see the ocean, very blue, about fifty meters away. In all other directions, hills white with frost or actual snow. No dwellings in sight: though the map had listed towns on the island, he had deliberately aimed away from them. In their current situation, lack of humanity was a good sign.

"You put up the tent; I'll do the spells," said Harry. Usually the spells were Hermione's responsibility, but he worried whether she could perform them properly in her current daze.

Hermione did an amazingly quick job with the tent, perhaps because she was anxious to set up some barrier against the icy wind. By the time Harry was done and went inside. Hermione had already managed to heat up some of the tent, and focus some of the heat on the teakettle. Even on the edge of civilization, 4:30 was tea-time.

Settling down opposite her, Harry let themselves simply enjoy the tea and warmth for a few minutes. But finally he asked: "I hate to bring this up, Hermione, but is something wrong?"

"Wrong?" she echoed. "Gee. You-know-Who rules the English Wizard World, and Hogwarts is run by a group of thugs, and my parents don't know I exist, and Ron's deserted us, and I'm terrified even to do a simple thing like get my hair done. Yeah, a lot is wrong."

At least she had an excellent grasp of their problems.

"I mean, particularly wrong today?"

She started crying. "I used the Cruciatus Curse on Mundungus!"

"Yeah—"

"When I first heard of the Unforgivable Curses, I thought: I'm a good witch, I'll never do such a horrid thing. But I did, today."

"You thought you had good reason."

"He pressed my breasts!" she exclaimed, angry through the tears. "I've never allowed any boy the liberty to touch them! But Cruciatus was still disproportionate. All I had to do was Stun him. I've gone rotten, Harry. I'm no better than the people we're fighting. It's not even the first time. Remember when we needed to get inside the Ministry, so we knocked out and robbed three people?"

"We had to. It was crucial to get that locket back from Umbridge. And the bloke I robbed deserved it."

"Two wrongs don't make a right."

"No, but they might be necessary, to bring down You-know-Who. Hermione, that you feel guilty is good, because you still have your moral bearings. Do you think somebody like Bellatrix would even care? But you can't let guilt paralyze you when action is needed. I'm willing to bet that before this is over, I'll use the Cruciatus curse myself."

"But we're NOT bringing him down, Harry. We're accomplishing nothing."

"So. Do you want to give up, like Ron? You could escape to the Continent. Beaux-Batons would be delighted to have you, I know. Or Krum could talk Durmstrang into enrolling you. Or go to Australia, restore your parents' memory, and live as a Muggle."

"I can't. Not as long as there's a chance that I could make a difference here."

"You do believe there's a chance, then."

"Yes. It's just – I'm so tired of life on the run. Do you realize, it's been months since I've been able to talk to another girl?"

"Is that important?" Harry regretted saying that a moment later. Of course it was important to Hermione or she wouldn't have mentioned it. "I mean, I'm willing to listen—"

"There are things a girl simply can't say to a boy." A pause. "I feel a lot better, though, Harry, having talked through this. Thanks for managing our escape when I was in the dumps."

A heightened sound of the wind outside, and both of them shivered. Harry went to the flap of the tent to look out.

"Damn, it's starting to snow."

"Well, this is the northern tip of the British Isles in late November," said Hermione. He heard her usual Gee-you're-dumb tone, but he was glad to hear it, because it meant she had gotten over her self-loathing.

"This may not have been a cool idea," worried Harry.

"It feels like a very cool idea," punned Hermione.

"Maybe we should try moving again."

"Dismantling the tent in the dark while trying to fend off freezing precipitation? Trying to set up camp in the dark somewhere else? Too much danger of mucking up something."

"Do you think that our magic is up to keeping us warm?" Harry asked. Although magic sometimes seemed limitless in its possibilities, there were limitations. Hermione had called them Gamp's Laws and speculated that they were related to what Muggle scientists called Conservation of Energy. You could start a fire magically, but you could not create heat where it didn't exist.

"Yes, with some ingenuity." She looked around the tent. Having a problem to solve seemed to complete the cure, bring back the old Hermione. "Harry, could you move our beds together?"

"_WHAT?" _

"Find all the items that NEED to stay warm, and put them under the beds, with some insulation. Then we heat that part of the tent, and simply let the rest of the tent freeze. The combination of magic, and proper covering, and our own body heat, oughta work."

"But if one of us is standing guard?"

"We'll freeze! I think that we can rely on the Sneakoscope for one night, Harry. No reason to think there is any magical presence around here."

"OK."

He started walking around the tent, picking up supplies. Hermione was doing magic on the beds, essentially turning them into one structure.

"Don't spend a lot of time on decisions," Hermione called out. "If we leave something in the cold, and need it later, we can always ACCIO it to us. Or throw something out if it's superfluous."

"Right."

"But get one big pot from the kitchen and leave it near the bed."

"Why?"

"Chamber pot. In case of emergency."

Harry didn't want to visualize that at all, but he found a suitable pot. After that he went to the real loo. Hermione was right: it was getting frigid. Harry worried about frozen pipes, then realized that there weren't any: the water appeared and disappeared by magic.

They packed the fragile stuff under the bed, with some insulating material under them and surrounding them. After that, Harry got into the bed, with all his day clothes still on except his shoes, and Hermione took her turn in the loo. Emerging, she picked up the sheets on her side of the bed. Suddenly she giggled.

"What is it?"

"If only Professor McGonagall could see me now, getting in bed with a boy!"

"Yeah, hilarious," muttered Harry, trying not to think of the implications.

"Of course it's all a matter of intent. We're just trying to stay warm."

"Intent – yeah –"

TBC


	7. Our Own Private Universe

**All alone in the World**

**Chapter 7 Our Own Private Universe**

_(Warning: the subject matter here is more explicit than anything in Rowling's books, though still within a T rating.)_

_(Author's Note: the line about Maxwell's demon is a science joke. Maxwell, an 1800s founder of thermodynamics, tried to explain his theory to laymen by imagining a demon following certain instructions [Nowadays he would have thought of a computer program]. A hundred years later sci-fi writer Larry Niven wrote a joke about a wizard who used Maxwell's Demon to heat his cell)_

Harry closed his eyes as Hermione climbed in. The sight of a girl getting into his bed was simply too suggestive. He could still feel the bed shift a little under her weight, and a couple of times she inadvertently brushed against him while settling in.

When he opened his eyes again, Hermione was waving her wand in the air, chanting something about Maxwell's demon. She finished and stuck the wand under her pillow. "There, I've done my best to trap heat in the area around the bed, so basically we're cooped up in here until morning. I can trust you not to take advantage, right?"

"I won't do a thing without your permission, Hermione."

She gave him an odd look, but settled back in her pillow. "I can get a little more heat by pushing light into the infrared spectrum. OK?"

"Fine with me," Harry said, but not too sure what she meant. His mind was too busy trying to get certain thoughts out of his head.

"It's weird," she said after several minutes. "You can't hear or see a thing beyond my bubble. It's as if we had our own little world in this bubble, just you and me. Nothing else to worry about. In particular, no Voldemort."

Harry was to learn later that Voldemort had put a curse on people who uttered his name, and that landing on an offshore island had put them out of range without knowing it. Right now he just thought about Hermione's remark.

"I don't think I can ever forget Voldemort. He's pervaded my entire life, particularly the last three years. Nobody regards me as good old Tom-Dick-Harry. I'm the Boy Who Lived, the symbol of Voldemort's failure or weakness, the anti-Voldemort. And it gets wearing."

"I know what you mean. Sometimes I feel like I've been cast for a role: the squire serving the hero."

"More like Jeeves protecting Bertie Wooster."

Hermione laughed. "Well, it's still a role. But we can forget that for one night, and just be friends."

"Yeah, friends."

A minute of silence. "Harry?"

"Yes?"

"Remember about three weeks ago when I said I was feeling ill?"

"Yeah, I was worried."

"Well, I wasn't really ill. I was having my period, and too embarrassed to say so."

Harry felt his face going red, which was fortunately invisible in the darkness. "It's terrible that you had to feel embarrassed about a fact of nature. But I guess that was one of the 'things a girl can't say to a boy'."

"Yes."

"Then why tell me now?"

"Because the next one will come in about a week, and I didn't want to lie again. And I wanted to demonstrate that we can be open with each other." She paused for a moment before adding, "Harry, I can tell something's bugging you. What is it?"

"Never mind." Harry immediately realized that was the wrong thing to say, because it confirmed that there was something.

"Please trust me! There's nothing else for us to do for hours than lie here waiting for the weather to improve, so why not thrash things out? We can't sleep all that time."

Harry burst out angrily: "How can a boy tell his best friend that he wants to –' he caught himself just in time. He felt his cheeks grow warm for reasons that had nothing to do with the heat spell.

"Wants to what?" A half minute passed while Hermione's thought about it, and she exclaimed. "Gandalf's Gauntlets! You want to sleep with me!"

The direction of her voice and the arrangement of the sheets had changed, and he realized that she had abruptly sat up on her side of the bed. He had to give her credit for not scrambling out of the bed altogether, although it might have been because of the cold outside their little bubble.

"No – yes –"

Another awkward minute, where all sorts of thoughts must have been rushing through Hermione's head. "I – I can't, Harry. I love you as a friend and all that, but it's too much--"

"OK. I'll respect that. You wanted my secret, I told you, now let's forget it. Try to get some sleep. If you don't feel safe lying next to me, let's set up separate beds, or a Shield spell between us, or something."

"I trust you, Harry."

Harry turned his back on her and tried to forget she was there. Eventually he fell asleep, and found himself tempted by a dream girl that seemed to be a combination of Ginny and Hermione. When he rejected her, she turned into a combination of Umbridge and Moaning Myrtle, which was quite a nightmare.

"Harry?" came Hermione's voice. Her hand was on his shoulder.

"Yeah?"

"I changed my mind. I'll do it."

"Why did you change your mind?" he asked cautiously. He didn't know how long he had been asleep, leaving Hermione thinking.

"I thought over it. You gave me quite a shock, Harry. Hearing a new side of you after six years. Usually I fend off boys because I'm annoyed that they're just interested in my body, not my mind. But I know that you, of all people, respect me. And there are so many people we know who have Done It without finding it beastly. Mr and Mrs. Weasley, with all those children. Tonks and Lupin – she sure got pregnant in a hurry, didn't she? There must be something wonderful about it, that I'm completely missing out on."

Looking back at it later, Harry realized that it was a wild mixture of reasons, and nowhere in it was a simple I LOVE YOU. But at the time all he was aware of was that Hermione seemed to be saying YES.

"Um, think about pregnancy, Hermione. We can't risk –"

"I put a temporary sterility curse on myself. Now let's get out of our clothes -- A_lohanuda!_" Suddenly the innermost layers of Harry's coverings disappeared while leaving the sheets and blankets intact. Hermione must have retrieved her wand.

"Wow! Where did you find that spell?"

"Forbidden Books Shelf, of course. It's not something they'd want students to know about. Imagine if the Weasley twins knew how to make people's clothes vanish—"

"Forget the twins, Hermione. It's just us."

"Yes – just us---"

Things happened very quickly after that. Hermione at one point did ask Harry to touch one of her breasts, "so I can forget Mundungus's filthy paws." Harry forbore from remarking that she had been wearing several layers of clothing on the earlier occasion, and no clothes now.

At no point did thoughts of Ron or Ginny enter their heads. If they had, that might have stopped the proceedings altogether.

Harry woke several hours later. Sunlight was peaking in the flap of the tent, and the snow seemed to have stopped. Probably still freezing, but nothing they couldn't handle. Irrationally, he felt he could take on Voldemort himself in his current mood.

"Wake up, Hermione. It's a new day. In more ways than one!"

Hermione's face was buried in her pillow. She did not seem to hear Harry. He placed his hand gently on her bare back, and she started as if she had been hit by a Stunning Curse.

"Omigod!" she wailed. "What have I done?!"

TBC

_(AFTER NOTE: Fans who have read DEADLY HALLOWS will remember that Harry explicitly denied having an affair with Hermione during their months alone. I will deal with that contradiction in the next chapter.)_


	8. Epilogue: No Longer Alone

**All alone in the World**

**Epilogue: No Longer Alone**

_(Spoiler Note: for those who have not read DEADLY HALLOWS to the end, this story does make reference to who won and who died during the crisis)_

"And that's how it happened," finished Harry, looking around at the solemn faces of Ginny, Ron, and Hermione.

It was the day after the defeat and death of Voldemort. The grownups of the Order of the Phoenix, led by Kingsley, had dashed southward to London to recapture the Ministry for Magic. Some people thought Harry should have gone with them, but he made it clear that he was through being a symbolic leader and that Kingsley had his full support.

Hogwarts was chaotic, but it was a good chaos. Although the normal selection process was in shambles, the teachers had chosen Professor McGonagall as the Acting Headmistress and it would probably stick. People were rebuilding the damage, though leaving some of it as a memorial to those who had died defending the school. It would be several days before classes could resume, which was fine with a lot of the students.

The big heroes were Neville and Harry, the two who had had the courage to confront Voldemort directly. When Harry observed that he had nowhere to stay, the current inhabitants of his old room promptly vacated it to him. No doubt they planned to boast later that "Harry Potter slept here." People were gossipy, but not at all shocked, when the heroes' favourite girls, actually heroines in their own right, joined him in his room.

But what was going on here was no lovefest.

"Did it happen more than once?" asked Ron darkly.

"No," said Hermione. "I was so humiliated when I realized that I had thrown away my virginity just to satisfy my sexual curiosity – I was determined never to do that again, and Harry respected that."

"Did it affect your relationship afterwards?"

"We didn't try to blame each other, but we were more careful of each other from then on," said Hermione. "And it was clear we couldn't keep going on that way forever, so we started taking more risks in our search. Going to Harry's birthplace, which turned out a bad idea, and following the doe to the sword, which was a good one. Weirdly enough, I had to pretend to be Harry's wife at one point, but we didn't let that tempt us into anything."

Ginny looked morosely thoughtful. During the last two days she had lost a brother and seen her loving mother kill an adversary. Now she burst out:

"Harry, if it had been anybody else but Hermione, I'd strangle you and put an awful curse on the bitch. But I understand the bizarre circumstances that you two were under. Did you notice how often you said "all alone" or "our private universe" or "isolated from the world". You went for months not speaking to another human being, except Mundungus—

"And he shouldn't really count as human," muttered Ron.

"—and so close to each other that Hermione had trouble keeping her periods private. Plus, you felt you were wasting months of your lives accomplishing nothing. I'd go crackers, too, in that situation. I guess it's understandable, and although I'm not happy it happened, I'm willing to forgive you." She got up slowly and gave Harry a sombre kiss, and a sisterly embrace with Hermione. "But I don't speak for my brother."

Everybody looked at Ron, who seemed uncomfortable. "Hermione and I didn't have an understanding at that point, so I suppose I don't have a right to complain. I certainly don't expect my love to be a virgin, in this age. But what gets me is that you LIED to me, Harry, about what went on between you too."

Harry sighed. "I know. There's no getting around that. But remember the circumstances. The Locket knew Hermione and I had been intimate, and it was trying to turn you against us by playing on your resentment. But all the spin it put on the situation was wrong. We didn't want to be rid of you. Hermione didn't rate me above you. I told you that our love was platonic, and I was right, because sexual love simply hadn't worked between us."

"Yeah, I remember being tempted. Hearing the absolute truth would have ruined everything," admitted Ron.

"Under You-Know – Under VOLDEMORT," Hermione declared, "lying was almost inevitable. The worse of the war is that we had to adopt the enemies' tactics in order to survive and fight back. Look at Professor Snape; he not only told lies, he LIVED a lie, and helped bring down Voldemort as a result. Even Draco told a noble lie at one point, when he pretended not to recognize us when we were captured."

"She's right," said Ginny. "Voldemort is GONE, and we ought to be able to rejoice. If we do have to be droopy, let's mourn for those who didn't live to see it – Sirius, Dumbledore, Mad-Eye, Fred and the others. But the nightmare is over, and we're awake and can put it behind us. And I know one thing," she hugged Harry again, "I'm never going to let you alone for the rest of my life!"

THE END


End file.
